She Stands in Rain
by awkwardictator
Summary: <html><head></head>Leah is the girl who ran. Sam is the boy, relentlessly chasing, pursuing. This is no fairy tale.</html>
1. She is beautiful

She is beautiful.

There is no denying that God, if there is a God, has been awfully good to her in the gene pool. She stands on the sidewalk, a large tote swung over her shoulder and digging into the soft skin there, and she doesn't smile. It's futile, she thinks.

Her red lips are pulled into a perfectly straight line, her arched brows furrowed, trying to protect her dark eyes from the sun, the rare, beautiful, yellow sun that shines down on New York City, and her breathing is ragged though she hasn't ran, hasn't moved fast…

She stands on the sidewalk of New York City, a stunning picture, and raises her hand to hail a cab.

"I thought I might find you here."

And suddenly, there's a sensation in the pit of her stomach that she can't control, boiling and heated. She can feel the warmth in her dark cheeks (raspberry against cinnamon) but she doesn't turn her head as the man moves gracefully, taking his spot beside her. She lowers her hand just as he raises it, attempting to hail a cab for her. Her lip curls bitterly.

She feels the need to scoff, so she does. But she doesn't say anything else.

It's a soft scoff but he hears it and she can almost feel the smile that must be twisting at his lips. "What? You knew I'd find you?"

"You always do," she murmurs softly, tucking some of her ebony hair behind an ear. It's cut short, but stylish, because she has better things to do than sit in front of her vanity mirror and mess around with long hair. She frowns. "Why are you here, Sam?"

"I've come to take you back," he says. She looks at him, finally, and he's watching her, gauging her reaction (he is handsome). He smiles shortly as their eyes meet. "I've come to take you home-"

"New York is my home," Leah interrupts, bristling. "Has been for the past year."

"Yeah? What about Boston? And Springfield before that? Or Lubbock?"

"Places I once lived," Leah brushes off, though her heart pangs painfully at the names of previous homes. She smiles wryly and tilts her head, looking up at her companion from beneath thick lashes. "You can't follow me forever, you know. The pack probably feels abandoned without you."

"You're one to talk," Sam says and he runs a hand through his dark hair. "Listen, it's been three years. Don't you want to come home?"

"New York is my home," Leah repeats, robotically. She adjusts the tote on her shoulder and sighs. A cab is slowly making its way down the street so she raises her hand once again and waves.

"I know why you do this." Leah is mildly impressed, because of all the times Sam has followed her to places, he's never been forward like this. "I know that you're just running. From everything. You feel that it's what you do best."

Her eyes are ice shards as she turns her gaze on him. "You don't know anything about me. Haven't, in fact, since graduation." And his face is pained, and his eyes shatter into a million pieces, and he looks completely exhausted but mostly just…sad. He wants to tell her things that he can never voice when he's shifted- things that are for her ears only. Or maybe not. Maybe they're for nobody's ears except his own. He wants to voice the million thoughts running in his head and how it should have been Leah and not Emily and how everything might have been ten hundred million times less complicated if that had been the case. Most of all, he wants to tell her that she will always mean more to him than anyone. And he is so so sorry that she is hurt by all of this.

"You'll want to come back eventually," he says instead, but the cab is here, and she's climbing in. "You need us. It's been too long."

Leah smiles as she sticks one foot into the cab and it's a glimpse of the old Leah- so beautiful, so sweet, so…not bitter, like this one. She smiles and he frames the moment in his heart because it's exactly what he wants to see. All the time. Everyday. Forever.

She smiles. "It's been a while," she agrees. She looks up at the sky and her smile widens. "It's going to rain." And then she is gone.

And Sam is standing in the rain, alone, alone, alone…


	2. The first time she sees Sam again, she's

The first time she sees Sam again, she's sitting in a café in Springfield, Illinois.

She's bought her vanilla bean espresso and she's sitting down at a table by the window, so that the light streaming in illuminates her novel. She's reading _Woman on the Edge of Time_ by Marge Piercy and it's captivating, so of course, she forgets the world for a good ten minutes.

It's only when her throat feels slightly parched and she reluctantly lifts her head to take a sip of her espresso, that she sees him.

He's standing outside the window, his stance casual, and his posture fluid as though he had been in motion before she had turned her head and locked him in her gaze, forever freezing him in time. Her eyes widen and her jaw drops. She can't help it. It's been _six whole months_…

He looks beautiful, and she knows it; his dark hair falls below his ears, longer than he usually might have allowed it to be and his eyes are intense beneath dark brows. His eyes are guarded as he whirs into action again, moving towards the door, preventing her escape. She allows him to walk in to the café, move across the floor, and seat himself in front of her, the chair scraping against the linoleum. She has returned her gaze to her book and doesn't look up as he sits.

"Hello," he says and her breath catches. _Six months…_

She turns the page of her book, idly. She hears his sigh.

"Is that the greeting you're going to give your alpha?"

Her eyes, cool and possessing a certain stoniness that can never be removed from the depths of dark gray, move upwards. "Are you _lost_?"

Sam smiles because Leah's cruel humor can always end up inexplicably amusing him. "_Leah_."

"What?" she snaps. She closes her book and he notices how gentle the action is in contrast to her words and tone- she used to be gentle with _him_ too… "Why are you here? How did you even find me?"

"Wolf instincts?" Sam tries, smiling weakly. She frowns at him pointedly. "Seth may or may not have let it slip…"

"I'm going to kill that kid," Leah mutters to herself and Sam smirks.

"How have you been?" Sam asks and it's all Leah can do to not throw her espresso mug at his head. She glares.

"Sorry, stupid question," Sam says after a moment. They sit in quiet peace.

"What I don't understand," Leah starts slowly, peering up at him, her eyes narrowed in suspicious curiosity, "is how you…how are you…"

Sam's expression is nervous, grim, uneasy- "Please don't." She nods because she understands perfectly.

"Why are you here, Sam?" Leah questions again, warily. Sam locks eyes with her- dark, pleading, sad.

"Please come home," he says and Leah bites her lip. She runs her finger across the wooden table, feeling the rough contours. "I-_we_ _need_ you."

She is silent. When she speaks again, her voice is soft. "You _know_ I can't. When I'm there…I can't _breathe_." She smiles sadly. She reaches across the table in a moment of courage and places her fingers over his. "Tell Seth I'll be waiting for his call." She gets up to leave and Sam flexes his fingers, feeling the powerful tingling that seems to rush all the way to the tips of his toes.

She turns back around once and there isn't a single trace of a smile on her lovely face. "Oh, and don't follow me, yeah?"

She walks out the doors.

She leaves Springfield, Illinois the next day.

* * *

><p>She second time she sees Sam again, she phases after almost a year of not doing so.<p>

She's had the busiest day at work- the restaurant she works as a waitress at is fucking _huge_ and she regrets applying there in the first place. Boston is lovely and metropolitan and Leah thinks that she belongs in a place like this; crowded, active, forever alive.

She walks up the steps to her flat, fishing in her bag for the keys, but stops in her tracks- standing, about ten feet away from her, is Sam and- _Quil?_

"Quil?" Leah voices, shocked. Both men's dark heads turn in her directions and a grin splits the younger one's face, almost in two. Sam is silently regarding her, under his ever-watchful eyes. Leah ignores him.

"Lee-Lee!" Quil beams as he hops forward, enveloping her in a hug. She is stunned. She used to _love_ that nickname. Until…

She sees Sam flinch at the name and she smirks into Quil's wide shoulder.

"What the hell are you doing here, Quil Ateara?" she asks, half-joking half-serious as he pulls away from her. "I can_not_ believe you are in _Boston_."

"We've come to take you back, Leah," Quil tells her and he sounds so happy, so childish, Leah feels her heart clench. Her eyes dart to Sam's still figure and back.

"That won't be happening, Quil, honey."

"Ah. We thought you might say that," Quil says and he looks overly smug, an expression Leah has not seen on him since his adolescent days. "But we have a very convincing factor."

Leah stares at the two of them. "What's this? What do you mean by…" She trails off as Seth steps out from behind the wall Quil had been previously leaning on.

"Hey sis," he says sheepishly.

And Leah is furious.

Sam sees it before anyone else and he steps forward, wary. "Now, listen here Lee-"

She snaps at the name.

"How dare you?" And she's screaming like no other, like a banshee, and she doesn't give a fucking shit if the whole apartment complex can hear her hollering at the top of her lungs. "How dare you bring my fucking brother across the country, away from his education, away from his mother who needs him…how fucking dare you?" She's trembling and through her anger-hazed eyes, she sees the men back away, stunned.

Quil looks startled and frightened, Seth looks ashamed, and Sam…well, mostly he just looks knowing. And sad. Still very very sad.

She feels as though she is about to explode.

"I want you gone," she tells them. "I don't want to see any of you. Ever."

Seth cringes at the harsh tone of her words but Quil, soft, sweet, playful Quil, steps forward misjudging her softer voice. "Surely you don't mean that-"

She releases a snarl, her teeth baring, and suddenly, her muscles are contracting, her limbs are expanding, she's burning _tear burn rip crack_ and she's phased. She stand before them, a small gray wolf, and she howls as they watch her, agonized by her heartbreaking cry. She turns and runs.

She never looks back.

When she returns to her flat the next evening, they are gone.

She sinks to the ground, right outside her flat. And cries.

(And cries some more.)

* * *

><p>The third time she sees Sam, she's exasperated.<p>

She's lived in Lubbock, Texas for a year now and she's not too happy with her choice but it's far from everything that reminds her of hell and she needs that. She really does.

Some might call it running. Leah calls it life, and saving oneself.

Lubbock is rather dry, usually. Not much rain, not much cold, besides the winter. It's a beautiful place and she wished she could feel content staying there for the rest of her years. But she knows this is not the case.

Because something is pulling her to the Big Apple. Something is telling her to take a chance and start anew in New York City. It's always been her dream after all.

_"One day you're going to find me on the streets of Manhattan, hailing a cab, starting my life again, and I won't even see you. You'll be invisible to me. I'll be happy, because I'll be away from you. I'll always be waiting for that day."_

Those words, spoken by a broken-hearted young girl…she remembers the day. It is clear in her mind. The two of them, standing outside her house, and she's yelling and screaming and slapping…

She shakes her head as, finally, she reaches the bookstore she has been walking to. It's empty and quiet, just the way she likes it, and she slips in through the front entrance, ready to settle down with a good novel and a mocha.

He's standing at the counter, buying a book, talking amiably with the cashier, who is a young woman and seems to have noticed that he is, indeed, an extremely attractive man. She is giggling at whatever he says. Leah feels sick to her gut.

He looks up as he draws a bill from his wallet and sees her. A (beautiful) smile lights up his face and he looks so goddamn happy to see her. She sighs. He's a good actor and a damn good diplomat when he needs to be. With a courteous good-bye to the register woman, he steps out of line and makes a beeline for Leah, who is holding her breath, glaring at him in exasperation.

He stands before her and smiles. She releases a short bark of laughter.

"What?" he asks and his voice is velvet. A smile tugs at his lips. "Why are you laughing?"

She shakes her head, half-amused. "Just wondering when you'll give up, is all."

"Never," he retorts, following her as she walks past a few shelves, on her way to the politics section. "You should know that by now."

"Hmm," she agrees and suddenly, she feels like talking to him. "What book did you get?"

He looks surprised. After a moment he answers, with a hint of a smile on his face. "David Copperfield."

She snorts. "Pathetic. If I recall, we read that in, what, _tenth grade_?"

"Bravo," he agrees, amused. "But if _I_ recall, it was your favorite."

She nods reluctantly. "One of them." It's strange, standing in a bookstore in Lubbock, Texas, making small talk with the very man that broke her heart less than four years ago.

"I'm leaving," she blurts suddenly.

"Ok…? Do you want to catch coffee or something this afternoon or-"

"No," she says, taking a deep breath. "I'm leaving Lubbock. For good."

"Oh." He frowns, taking this information in. "Oh. Ok."

"I'm never coming to La Push, Sam," she tells him. "And I want you to stop following me. It's not normal and borderline obsessive." She tries to make a joke about it.

His face is dead serious. "We _need_ you, Lee."

She sets her book down, her lips pressed into a thin line and moves towards the exit. "You don't, Sam. Really. Good-bye." She steps outside.

It's raining.

He catches up to her as she pulls the hood of her jacket over her dark, silky hair, and yanks her backwards. She looks up at him through squinted eyes and watches as he is soaked from head to toe.

"I'll never give up, you know that? We're a pack. A family. We need each other. You don't know what everyone is going through; Seth, Sue-"

"Don't you dare lecture me on how to treat my family, Sam Uley," Leah growls, pulling her arm free from his tight grip.

"You're doing a shit job of it," Sam snarls back.

She glowers. "We don't need each other, Sam. I'm breaking my connection with the pack by distancing myself. They'll get used to it and so will I…it's only a matter of time. I just…I just can't do it."

His dark eyes are tender as he bends farther down towards her, water droplets dripping off clumps of his ebony hair and falling on her face. "I'm always going to be here, Leah. We need each other. I'll be here till you realize it."

He leaves her standing in the rain.

She doesn't move until he disappears from sight completely, all traces of his presence washed away by the heavy droplets of rain that splatter across the cement.

* * *

><p>The fourth time she sees Sam, she's feeling wry. It's ironic, she thinks.<p>

Because five years ago, when she had been a young, broken-hearted girl, she had promised that she would be found on the streets of Manhattan, hailing a cab.

It happens.

But it is ironic, she thinks as she drives away in the cab, restraining herself from looking back, leaving him in the rain, just as he had left her the year before, that she promised that he would be invisible to her. That she would be happy.

She _is_ happy. Mildly happy. New York is truly the city of dreams and she's studying at an amazing school and, really, what more could she want?

The day has come and she smirks because the irony is too much.

Because she had promised that he would be invisible to her.

But in reality, it is _she_ who remains invisible in his eyes.

And, ironically, he is the only thing she sees.


	3. There's a little bit of lint-erm on your

"There's a little bit of lint-erm-on your hair…"

Leah's lashes flutter open and she turns to the side, rock music blaring through her headphones.

There is a boy. She blinks back her shock. Nobody ever dares to sit by her, for fear of castration, or in the case of a girl, general chaos created by the beautiful Quileute. He is sitting beside her, slightly on edge, as opposed to Leah's slouch, and he is looking straight at her. Leah's brows furrow.

She cocks an eyebrow in his direction, not having heard clearly what he had been trying to say, and the boy gets the idea.

He points to his own head, gesturing towards his crown, then points at her.

Immediately, Leah's fingers shoot up, grasping at her dark strands. She feels a little ball of fluff, perched upon her unsuspecting head, and she feels a traitorous blush crawling up her cheeks. She quickly pulls it off, looking towards the boy with a semi-bashful expression.

He grins at her.

She is blushing harder than ever.

She's never felt this. High school boys are juvenile. To be perfectly honest, Leah is rather juvenile herself, but is more calm, more subtle, more in control. This boy…he seems to carry a mature wisdom in the depths of his dark eyes.

She loves it.

Slowly, she pulls off her headphones, gesturing to her head. "Thanks for that."

He's staring at her like he's never seen a girl in his life and although Leah's been looked, gawked, and leered at before, it's nothing, nothing, nothing like this.

"No problem." His voice is beautiful, mellifluous. She could write poetry about his voice, write until her fingers bled.

Leah hates poetry.

Feigning confidence, but feeling just a little too shy for her liking, she sticks her hand out. "Name's Leah."

He beams. "Sam," he replies lowly and she's completely caught.

* * *

><p>He pulls her chair out for her when they go out to eat. He opens doors for her, offers her his arm, shrugs his coat off when she shivers even the slightest bit.<p>

He is perfect.

Leah is young, sweet, and merely fourteen and finding this boy- this beautiful, beautiful boy- is like a dream.

It helps that he's gorgeous and Leah knows that the other girls at school are completely envious that it is she who gets to be the one he stammers compliments at when she opens the door to her house, dressed for their date, the one who gets to accept his beautiful bouquet of flowers, his wonderful praises, and his hand as they return to his car after a hilarious dinner involving drink spilling, straw wrapper darts, and secret giggles about the people in the store, making up story after story about their lives.

"The lady in red? She's waiting on a long lost lover," Sam whispers in her ear as they consume their respective ice creams, sitting on top of his beat up Ford. Leah is cross-legged in her pretty forest green dress, her body tilted towards his, and Sam stretches his own long legs across the front of his car. They're watching an older woman who is seated across the street at a small, run down cafe in a lovely red dress, fingering a drink.

Sam takes a bite out of his ice cream cone. "He's returning from overseas and it's been long, too long, and she wants to give up, but she knows that it's so close. He's almost here, and she can feel it." His voice is beautiful and soothing and it sends odd little shivers down Leah's spine. She pulls Sam's coat tighter around herself and resists the urge to nuzzle into his frame. She nods slowly, licking at her own ice cream in thought.

"Or, she's a retired dancer," Leah replies in a hushed voice. "She used to be stunning in her youth, almost ethereal, but age has gotten to her." The lady shifts on the chair she is seated at, almost as if she has heard the two mischievous teens, and Leah pauses. She feels Sam smile beside her.

"Don't laugh, she's miserable about it," Leah elbows him playfully. "And besides, those who laugh at her are the ones who face her wrath." She beckons him closer and he leans in, enthralled. "After touring the world in a legendary dance team, she has learned all the tricks of witchcraft and sorcery. She's just waiting to prey on unsuspecting teenagers with too much youth on their hands." She leans back, satisfied, as she watches Sam throw his head back, bursting into laughter that seems to bring light to the night.

"How did that take such a morbid turn?" he asks once his chortles have receded. Leah rolls her eyes.

"As if yours wasn't depressing as ever, Mr. Love-separated-for-a-million-years." He grins. "Besides, we were both wrong." Leah gestures with her free hand, the one that doesn't encompass her ice cream, to the café. The lady is standing, tying an apron around her frame, carrying her drink, and a tray into the café. "She only works there."

Sam smiles softly. "Doesn't mean she isn't waiting for her true love."

"Or waiting to prey on innocent youngsters," Leah counters, smiling as Sam chuckles. "I guess happy endings just don't come about in real life."

Sam is silent, staring at the sky for a few moments, before he expels a sigh. "The world is harsh. But I don't think there ever is such thing as a happy ending. The end is death, after all, and who knows what happens then?"

Leah sighs as well, nuzzling comfortably into Sam's coat draped around her shoulders. "Are you afraid of death?" she asks boldly, and Sam smiles.

"No," he says resolutely. "But I want to be able to live, laugh, and love first."

She laughs throatily. "And how many of those have you completed?"

"Two, I'd say. And I'm definitely on the way to completing the third." He turns his dark gaze on her, the stars reflected in his eyes, and Leah melts. His fingers reach towards hers and they entwine, gently resting upon his rusty car hood.

He's staring at her, and it's unreal. She can see all his thick lashes, he's so so close. "The lady in red may not be getting her happy ending." He pauses, his tongue darting out to wet his lips, his eyes flickering to Leah's rosy ones. "But I hope we will."

And she's smiling, even as his lips meet hers, and the stars seem to explode above her, sending lights careening across her soul. She can practically feel the ice cream she holds in her hand melting from the all the heat, the heat of his lips, the heat of his presence, the heat of his gaze, and gosh, Leah wonders how there's just so much heat on such a cold night. She's still smiling as he pulls away, looking at her, intense and lovely.

She raises their entwined hands and kisses the back of his. "I hope so too."

* * *

><p>The rain pours in turrets. He's drenched to the bone, hair stuck to his forehead. She is too, though, but while she looks devastated, he looks simply resigned.<p>

He isn't that fourteen year old boy anymore. That boy who brought chocolates for her whenever they had a test, who blushed when she held his hand, who was too mature to stay out late and watch fireflies, but when she'd told him she'd secretly wanted that, had done it anyway. For her.

He isn't even the fifteen sixteen seventeen year old who danced with her under the crescent moon, counted the freckles on her nose, or kissed her lips until those silly silly stars were in her eyes.

Now, he's eighteen. They've just graduated from high school. He's older, wiser, and, standing before her, she sees that he's completely and utterly different.

"God, _why_?" she screams at him and though he winces, she knows that he feels nothing nothing nothing like her pain.

"I'm sorry," he tells her and what the fuck does that word mean anymore to him what the fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck

She's trembling with rage and with hatred; she's always been relatively calm- but this…she can't hold herself back as she slaps at his chest, punches it, not caring that her hands are bruising, her bones might be breaking and she is realizing that not only does she not affect him mentally anymore, he is physically impermeable.

She doesn't understand. She loves him. She _loves_ him.

She thought he loved her.

She thought…she thought…

Whywhywhywhywhywhy

She realizes that, at the end of the day, he isn't so different after all, to the beautiful fourteen-year old he once was, even if his gaze doesn't hold the same promises it once did.

She raises her face to the heavens and screams.

He doesn't even have the fucking courage to put his arms around her and hold her as she cries.

* * *

><p>She's going to go into litigation.<p>

It's dangerous, the idea of debating, because as a shape-shifter, she could lose her cool at any moment and become the thing she dreads most.

In the middle of a courtroom.

This is her challenge. This is her fucking life challenge. She's going to shove it in everyone's face when she becomes the best motherfucking lawyer in New York City.

For now, she is a Government transfer student at Columbia University.

The professor brings her lecture to a close, reminding them of reading and online notes. Students file out, muttering amongst each other and Leah joins the throngs, swinging her bag over her shoulder.

The sun is bright as opposed to the rain that had settled over the island of Manhattan all last week. And because rain can go fuck itself with its much too similar to Washington State-ness, Leah is more than happy.

A subconscious smile curves at her lovely lips.

A flash of black and russet skin catches her eyes and she freezes.

_No_…

He can't be here. It's been a week. A week since she left him in the rain for all the world to see, drenched to the bone, looking eighteen years old again.

He's had to have left.

Slowly, she shakes her head.

He's gone. He has to be gone.

And if he isn't…she'll make sure he knows that she doesn't give a single shit.

She asks a boy in her Political Thought class to coffee the next day.


	4. She can't see his face

She can't see his face.

She realizes this about half way into the date.

He has green eyes. Brown hair. White teeth. A straight, proportionate nose. She can see freckles on his nose, a mole on his cheek. But all of these features, each and every one of his flaws and perfections don't form a bigger picture.

She can't see his face at all.

Her heartbeat is galloping, galloping away in her chest as she comes to this realization, and she can feel self-control slipping from between her clammy fingers and any fucking second now and she'd be losing control and ripping apart this little Brooklyn coffee shop with snarling teeth and sharp claws-

She closes her eyes.

And breathes shakily, in and out, in and out, _in and out_.

And then she says, "I'm sorry."

* * *

><p>"…and this is my better half and girl soul mate," Leah croons wrapping lean arms around her beautiful, beautiful, beautiful cousin. "Emily."<p>

Sam smirks. "Should I be jealous?"

Leah laughs, the stars shining in her eyes.

Emily rolls her eyes at her cousins' antics and smiles at the boy before her. "It's a pleasure to meet you, Sam," she says kindly, holding out her hand for him to take. He does so, smiling politely.

"It's nice to meet you as well."

Leah refuses to let go of her cousin, her chin resting against the girl's shoulder. "All my favorite people together," she murmurs, smiling lazily. "What did I do to deserve such happiness?"

Emily turns in her grasp, reaching up to pinch her cheek fondly and Sam's lips curve into that beautiful close-lipped, smile.

"Come on, happy girl," Sam winks, opening the front door to her house. "We'll miss that movie. After you, ladies."

Emily thanks him as she passes, and Leah slides by, slow, slow, slow, waggling her brows playfully.

And then suddenly his hands are attacking her waist and she's gasping quiet little breaths of laughter and joy as he pulls her into him, pressing soft kisses to her exposed neck.

"Stop, stop, Em's here, she might see, stop-" she giggles, pushing at him, but not really pushing at the same time.

His lips bump against the swell of hers. "So. What." And she's blossoming into a flower as he kisses away her inhibitions.

* * *

><p>It's the third time.<p>

Three meetings.

Third time's the charm.

Sam is acting strange strange strange and that's okay because strange is his new personality, and he's quiet quiet quiet, but of course, as of late, quiet is all he's ever been so that's okay too. He isn't meeting her eyes. He isn't even looking at her, speaking to her, meeting her halfway as he is so prone to do.

He doesn't notice hands brushing over his tense shoulders, whispered words floating to inattentive ears, eyes searching for his, but losing, always losing.

It's only when he stands up, abrupt, sudden, and excuses himself without preamble, that Leah truly begins to worry.

So she runs after him.

"Sam! _Sam!_ What's _wrong_?"

"It's nothing," he breathes and his eyes are darting around left, right, up, down-

"_Look at me_," she demands. But his head only ducks further into his chest, his lips turning downwards.

"Leah, I have to go, alright? I'll…come back, okay? I just have to go now," he says in a rushed, low voice and Leah is so taken aback by the use of her full name, something she hasn't heard in, what _one-two-three years?_ that she steps away and nods.

He leaves.

"What was that about," a soft voice accompanies a soft touch to the inside of Leah's elbow and Leah turns back to her beautiful, beautiful, beautiful cousin and hugs those lean arms around herself, feeling a chill despite the warmth of the evening sun. "Is he alright?"

She exhales, shaky. "I don't know, Em. God, I really don't know."

But that evening, she does.

He comes to her, in the middle of the night, like a criminal, a thief, and rips her heart to shreds.

And Emily, his new obsession, is the only one there to help her pick up the pieces.

* * *

><p>At first, Leah is hope. She is nostalgia and memories, first dates and dancing under stars, sweet sweet hopeful, and raw emotion splayed open.<p>

Then, she is misery. She is film noir, tragic love story, gunshots to the heart, knives in the back, ice cream, tissues, and old silken pajamas.

And then she is rage.

She is all encompassing fury, anger, biting words and snarling teeth, drawn brows, dark frowns, tough exterior to mask the way watching them (her _ex-boyfriend_ and her _cousin,_ and for _God's sakes_, could life be any more subtle about the middle finger it was pointing her way?) is like taking a sledgehammer to every ventricle and atrium of her fleshy, simple, lonely heart.

Rage is her driving force.

Rage gives her reason to continue on.

She spends the next few years of her life viewing the world in a light tinted with murderous, visceral red.

* * *

><p>"WHY ARE YOU BEING LIKE THIS," Sue Clearwater screeches. "WHY ARE YOU ACTING SO-SO-"<p>

"So what, Mom?" Leah dares, standing, and she sees Seth shake his head and Harry run a hand over his face. "Say it, I dare you-"

"SO COMPLETELY UNBEARABLE," Sue spits, eyes flashing. "YOU ARE A HUGE THORN IN THE SIDE OF THIS FAMILY, LEAH, YOU ARE DESTROYING US-"

"I AM NOT DESTROYING US," Leah screams, fists clenching at her sides and the room was closing in on her, her family hated her, her boyfriend had left her for her cousin, she was a huge bitch, a pain in everyone's ass, when she just wanted- she just wanted-

Her mother is screaming and shouting, spittle flying out, accompanying biting words, and Leah doesn't understand what she's shrieking back, but her throat feels like sandpaper, raw and possibly bleeding, and suddenly, snap, crackle, pop, her mind is twisting, her vision is darkened spots or whitened spots or maybe both, her limbs are shaking violent, violent, violent, and she is writhing, splitting open, out of control-

The only face she sees in her new, monstrous form, is Harry's as his breath stutters out of him in shock and he succumbs to unconsciousness.

* * *

><p>"I'm so sorry for your loss."<p>

Sue is leaning her head on her daughter's arm and gripping at her hand, tight tight tight, as though she might just fly away, but Leah is loose hands, loose posture, loose everything.

She is empty, vacant.

She is guilt incarnate.

"Leah," a quiet voice probes and she raises deadened eyes to meet Emily's sympathetic ones. She is beautiful, beautiful, beautiful despite the scars that streak across her face like leftover sunshine on an orange painted sky.

Leah stares blankly.

"Oh, Leah," she gasps before choking on a sob and turning into the broad shoulder beside her- exactly who's shoulder, Leah realizes dimly a moment later.

Sam looks at her with eyes filled with pity. His distant and detached eyes.

She understands now. All those bullshit old tales she had dismissed so easily as a child and teenager were coming back to bite her in the ass. She had been the poster child for disbelief when the elders had gathered around her father's death bed telling her things she had never wanted to know. Never, never.

But now, she gets it. And her heart moves to forgive.

It doesn't ease the ache, though.

Emily reaches out to hold her hand and Leah doesn't move as the girl wraps her fingers around her palm, squeezing like she might be able to suck out all the pain and hurt this world has cost her.

Leah doesn't return the squeeze. She looks past Sam and his scarred (but beautiful) fiancee and stares, emotionless, as they lower her father down down down into his grave, and her mother clings to her, stronger and tighter than ever, sobs wracking her body.

She doesn't shake them off. And she doesn't rage at them either.

It just isn't fucking worth it.

* * *

><p>The door to her apartment is open.<p>

She knows why before she even has the chance to become wary.

She pushes it open and he leans against the far wall, eyes glazed over as he watches Manhattan darken into a pink evening sky through her wide window.

She smirks bitterly. "You found me."

His gaze is sure and steadfast as he turns his head to meet her eyes. "I always do."

She removes things with slow and measured precision, dropping them as she walks to her dresser. Her shoes, keys, purse, phone, a light jacket. She's removing her wristwatch slow, careful, neat neat neat and taking just about a century to do it when she allows her eyes to flicker upwards, looking at him through the framed mirror above her dresser. He's still watching.

"Well?" she asks with a sigh, dropping her watch onto the wooden surface, before turning and meeting his actual gaze, hands clenching at the wood behind her. "What happens now?"

She can feel every particle in the room freeze at the tension. She leans back, crossing her arms across her chest, always defensive. But her eyes aren't guarded. They're simply watchful. Observant.

He takes a measured step towards her, but she doesn't blink. So he takes another.

He's walking towards her, directly at her, and then suddenly he's _right_ before her and she doesn't even have room to breathe, let alone think. His hands find their way onto the dresser, clenching where she was just moments before, trapping her.

She stills. She's nothing but a fluttering heartbeat, cold dread, scared, frightened, freshly brokenhearted little eighteen year old Leah with the whole world watching her every move as she squirms and huffs.

"Sam," she tries to sigh.

But she can't.

Because he's kissing her.


	5. The rejections are her salvation

The rejections are her salvation.

She thrives on every which way Emily turns down her ex-boyfriend and she simultaneously relishes and despises the absolute hurt in his eyes, if she is there to witness it.

Emily is so kind, sweet. She brings different flavors of ice cream for Leah to consume, old movies they haven't watched in years, smiles and laughs, and tales of how she had most recently brushed off Sam's pleads and declarations of ardour.

Around the tenth time she stops by, her laughs are a little fake, her smiles weak, eyes dull. There's a shift in her and Leah can see it, but she doesn't want to, so she ignores it.

"I told him it was never going to happen," Emily says one night, summoning up a slight chuckle that sounds half-hearted coming from her lovely soprano. She's playing with the ends of her hair, eyes glassy. "I told him to leave me alone for good."

Her lips tremble, just slightly. She was never as good of an actor as her cousin was.

But Leah doesn't want to see it.

So she continues to ignore it.

* * *

><p>"I love you, Leah."<p>

Leah's breath stutters within her. She knows that.

"I miss you."

She knows that too.

"I can't stand this. I can't stand this-this endless war between the three of us."

But it's so much easier this way, Leah wants to breathe. So much easier to just hate and feel angry at the people reasonable for her pain when she knows, she _knows_ that they are as helpless as she is. She knows that this isn't free will, that this is fate, and shit completely out of their control.

It isn't Sam's fault, she admits. Sam is not to blame. In fact, on her better days, Leah can summon up just the right amount of pity for him- for the way in which he first transformed, his confusion, his struggles, his imprinting that caused a rift between the people he cared for.

It isn't Emily's either. Sam's relentless pursuit, their arguments, her begging him to go back to poor _poor_ Leah, who was hurt, who was miserable, and finally an argument gone too far, an accident and a permanent scar that led her to forgive the boy who hated himself, who was on the brink of suicide.

So Sam isn't hers anymore, Leah thinks. A long time ago, it feels so so long ago, he had been, maybe. But he isn't now.

But Emily is, anyway.

"I miss you too, Em," she whispers, maybe chokes on a sob, and the girls hold each other to keep themselves from falling apart.

* * *

><p>He steps out for a breath of fresh air and is surprised at the lone figure leaning against the back wall of the Ateara house.<p>

Leah turns her gaze from the setting sun and meets his eyes. She blows, cheeks hollowing, and a single stream of smoke billows from between persimmon lips and she's James Dean pretty despite being a girl.

He raises a brow. "You smoke now?"

She exhales and then laughs, breathy. "My first and last. I can practically feel old Harry rolling around in his grave."

Sam smiles, slow slow slow, and Leah turns her face to take another draw at her cigarette, clutching it between loose, nimble fingers, her other arm wrapping around her waist.

"What are you doing back here?" she wonders, as he sidles up to her, adjusting his tall frame, his foot coming up to rest against the wall behind them.

"Just needed a breather," he admits, stuffing his hands in his pockets. The sun is a gross medley of pink, yellow, and purple and he watches it fade to violet, red, and orange.

"Hm," Leah hums. His presence isn't comfortable, like it used to be, but it isn't as terrible as it was when she was a part of his pack, under his charge. As a part of Jacob's pack now, she is free from his knowing gaze, his connection with her, that is so far from the connection they once shared, and free from having to share every morose, despondent thought that ever passed through her brain, with a bunch of wild boys and what she had once believed to be the love of her life.

"Listen," she begins, then shakes her head.

"What?" he asks, turning his head just slightly, all tall, regal, authority radiating from his every pore, and she wonders if this pack, Jake's pack, and his duties as an alpha are what define him now.

"Just…be happy, okay?" It comes out sounding harsh and snapped, mostly because she isn't one to throw out such a corny line and she's just a little embarrassed. "Make her happy. She's yours now."

He is looking at her. She doesn't remember the last time he actually did. "She's yours, too."

Leah smiles at that. "Yeah," she agrees, her hand fumbles around the cigarette. "But take care of her or…or I'll set the lady in red on you," she mutters, teasing, her heart shining through her eyes for the last, last time.

He can't see it.

He probably can't even see her face.

He smiles wide, laughs, and suddenly they are fourteen fifteen sixteen seventeen and in love.

She smiles bitterly, eyes stinging. No, she isn't stupid enough to believe that.

"I'll keep that in mind," he says, low voice radiating with emotion, Leah thinks she understands- after all, _finally_, he has made up with Emily's cousin, Emily will be _so_ happy, Emily, Emily, _Emily_-

Leah lets him believe this, even as she drops her cigarette, the dying embers of her pure and lovely soul, stomps it out and disappears into the dark house.

* * *

><p>She pulls back and slaps him.<p>

He rubs his cheek grudgingly, unsurprised, as though he had been expecting a similar response, and she hadn't disappointed.

"What the hell do you think you're doing," she asks, eyes flashing, hands trembling, and face flushing as her lips tingletingletingle. She pushes past him, moving swiftly and purposefully to the other side of her apartment, giving herself space to think, to understand. She runs a hand over her face just as he speaks, soft, patient.

"Leah…"

"No," she suddenly screams, whirling around to face his eyes that are too wise on such a young face. They're only twenty-three, for God's sakes, why do they look so weathered, weary, and battle-scarred? Why are they old souls breaking free from the chains of young adulthood?

"No," she mutters, softer this time. "You can't just- you can't do that. You _can't_."

Sam says nothing, waiting for her to collect herself, watching with familiarity as her form vibrates. He is expecting her to snap, to transform, to succumb to what he believes is her true nature.

She won't give him the satisfaction.

She steadies herself, takes deep breaths, _onetwothreefourfivesixseveneightnine_, and it slows her rapid fire heart.

He breathes out a laugh. "Neat trick. When'd you learn that? Sometime during your stay in Lubbock?"

She closes her eyes. "These three years have taught me a lot, Sam," she responds. "A lot about myself. My life. Who I want to be." She looks up at him now, eyes blazing. "Who I don't want to be."

He grits his teeth.

"You can't just decide who you want to be, Leah," Sam tells her, and he's under the surface frustration, bubbling and boiling. "People are born certain ways and they just have to live it out. That's life."

Leah snorts. "How very Freud of you." She places her hands on her hips. "Says the boy with the most convenient of life stories."

His eyes flash, sharp and sudden. "Nothing about my life has ever been convenient," he snaps.

Leah's breath stills. She swallows. "You're right, I shouldn't have said that. I'm sorry." It's uncharacteristic of her to back off so readily, and Sam is so taken aback, he quiets.

A moment later, he speaks again. "You went on a date," he says, all monotone and carefully crafted bland voice. He refuses to look at her.

"Yes," she agrees, rolling her hair tie off her wrist and pulling her short crop of hair into a high ponytail.

"How was it?" he asks after a long moment. He's still staring at the opposite wall, figure tense, poised for her answer.

Leah decides, for once, to simply be honest. "I couldn't even see his face," she admits.

Sam relaxes and breathes out a low laugh. "I fucking knew it."

Leah rolls her eyes. "Get out," she demands, holding the door open for him. "You've done enough damage today."

Sam points at the rapidly reddening side of his cheek from her blow and pouts. "What do you call this?"

She is only slightly amused. She smirks and points at the door again. He sighs and moves to it.

"I'll be back soon," he promises once he nears her, shoulder brushing hers, and Leah stiffens.

"You shouldn't," she murmurs.

"I will," he murmurs back, and leaves.

* * *

><p>"Leah!"<p>

The beautiful brunette turns, and spots the tall frame running towards her, down the steps of Butler library. She blinks as brown hair, green eyes, and white smile come to a stop in front of her.

"Oh…Jeremy. Hi," she smiles, tucking a flyaway strand behind her ear. "I'm sorry for leaving so abruptly the other day, I just-"

"No, no, it's fine. You didn't look well, I noticed. Are you feeling better now?"

"Much," Leah smirks politely.

He grins back. "Excellent. In that case, I was wondering if you were free on Saturday- you mentioned you liked horror movies and there's this fantastic one coming out…"

Leah blinks. She hadn't expected this, most certainly hadn't.

She doesn't know much about this boy, other than the fact that he's a good student, relatively funny, and, apparently, has an uncanny memory. And in her eyes, he has no face.

He does have words, though. And through his words, she can see his soul.

The look in Jeremy's green eyes is a challenge.

In her mind, she is seeing brown eyes, patient, perceptive brown eyes and they are daring her to say no, daring her to turn around and walk away, back into a life where she no longer has a place reserved.

So she smiles and says yes.


	6. She had always believed that they were

She had always believed that they were a perfect match.

Hard where he was pliable. Wild where he was quiet. Juvenile where he was adult, adult, adult.

When she sees Sam and Emily, together, for the first time, she understands just how wrong she was.

Emily is calm where he is calm. She is gentle where he is gentle. She is dutiful where he is dutiful. She is mature where he is mature. And it's just so fucking obvious that they are the same, meant to be, they aren't even two separate people, they are one person, one entity.

As she watches Sam slide his lips (his lipslipslips, which once upon a time she had claimed as her own) across Emily's ruined face, she turns her own face away and raises it to the sun, hoping the heat will wash away any trace of nostalgia and heartbreak.

She's tired of playing the role of the jilted ex-lover.

* * *

><p>The sun is a brilliant orb of golden, buttery, happiness.<p>

Leah chuckles around her sno-cone. The warm sunlight caresses her bare shoulders and legs and she twirls in her sundress feeling something she hasn't felt in a long time; girly and pretty.

Jeremy flicks an ice chip off her cheek and Leah rolls her eyes at his roaring laughter at her less than dignified way of eating.

Fed up, she chucks the sno-cone behind her carelessly and her hands slide up up up his shirt, finding his collar, which flirts with his shower-wet brown locks, and yanks him down. He's already smiling as his lips meet hers.

His lips are hasty and heady against hers. She throws back her head and laughs when he pulls away and shakes his wet hair over her, sprinkling her with shampoo scented raindrops.

She turns her face as his lips move to her raspberry cheeks and sees-

Sam leans against the brick wall of an old, worn jazz shop and even from this distance she can see his jaw clenched and pretty chocolate eyes positively crackling with emotion.

Her face is rapidly losing color, her heart rate increasing, but before she can fully comprehend the situation, her chin is being grasped, her face turned, and Jeremy's lips are on hers once more, hot and probing.

"Wait, wait-" she gasps a moment later and pushes at his chest, turning, turning, because what happened, why is he here, is he alright-

But he is gone.

"What's wrong, babe?" Jeremy's voice comes from somewhere above her.

"Um." She runs slightly shaky fingers through her dark hair and shoots him a distracted little smile. "Nothing. Sorry. Thought I saw someone I knew."

* * *

><p>Her phone is ringing, shrill and demanding in the tiny apartment.<p>

She snatches it off her nightstand, fully preparing to scream bloody murder at the person calling her at _one in the fucking morning_, but she sees who it is and flips the phone open, pressing it her ear eagerly.

"Seth?"

"Hey, sis."

Leah clambers into a sitting position, pushing heavy blankets tangling around her frame out of the way. "Sweetie, what are you doing? How's school? Are you alright?"

"One question at a time," Seth chuckles and she smiles, relaxing. "I'm fine. I just came back from a bonfire at First Beach. I was thinking of you."

Leah sighs and leans against her headboard. "I can't imagine why. I hated those things."

"Exactly," Seth laughs. "How are you?"

"I see you ignored my question about school, but I'll let that one slip for now," Leah comments playfully. Seth snorts. "I'm fine. College blows. Last semester and all."

"And yet, you're so hard on me about my education…"

Leah grins and swings her legs over the edge of her bed. "I expect All A's, Seth. It's your senior year."

"Ha freaking ha. Jake says hi, by the way."

"Tell that brat I said hi back," Leah laughs, thinking fondly on whom she considered one of her only true friends in La Push.

They chat like this for a while, superficial, on the surface, before he decides to dip his toe into the water, test her temperature.

"How's…Sam?"

Leah freezes in the middle of pouring herself a glass of water. "I wouldn't know. Haven't seen him for over a week."

"What?" Seth yelps. "Where is he?"

"Off clubbing baby seals, I don't know," she sighs, drifting over to her single armchair and sinking into it, legs crossing beneath her. "He's set on bringing me back, though."

"Then why don't you come back, Lee? You've had your taste of freedom, don't you want to come home?"

Leah rolls her eyes, because her brother's naivete never fails to make her laugh. "As if that was my only reason for leaving."

Seth is quiet on the other line.

Leah sips her water, then huffs. "I'm fine, Seth. Really. I have a boyfriend and everything, maybe you can meet him- his name's Jeremy…"

"Leah," and Seth sounds so absolutely horrified. "How…how could you possibly…"

"I haven't phased in more than two years," she continues, but her voice has dropped to a low murmur. "I'm not a part of the pack anymore."

Seth's voice is distressed. "_Leah_."

"Be safe, Seth," she interrupts. "Keep mom happy, too."

"You should be here helping me do that," and she senses the slight bitterness that colors his tone.

"I'm sorry," she says simply. "I love you."

He exhales, resigned. He's given up for the night. "Love you too, Sis. Goodnight."

* * *

><p>Leah's mind is restless as she raises onto her haunches, patrolling the coastline from the precipice of a cliff. Her heightened wolf senses are sharp as she scans the horizon, gray eyes taking in what others, humans, might easily miss.<p>

The wolves are speaking in her head. She had grown used to having one or two voices in her head after joining Jake's pack, but now, with Jake and Sam joining forces temporarily, she is, once again, privy to the inner workings of the minds of the wild, wild boys she grew up with.

_Rachel,_ Paul thinks.

_Claire,_ Quil thinks.

_Kim,_ Jared thinks.

_Nessie,_ Jacob thinks.

_Emily,_ Sam thinks, and she pushes the voices out of her head, breaking into a run as she turns from the cliff and makes her way back to La Push, back to everything that is destroying her from the inside out.

She focuses on sweet little Collin's voice after that. His adorable crush on her is _much_ more bearable to listen to.

* * *

><p>Jeremy takes her dancing.<p>

It's a Friday night and the city is swinging. She laughs as Jeremy does a weak impression of Fred Astaire as they enter the club. She is model pretty in a flare dress and a pair of heels. She is all lipstick, mascara, and blush.

She hasn't dressed up in what feels like a century.

Soon, she's sweating in the crowded, dark club, her hands grasping at the back of Jeremy's shirt. She can feel people around her grinding, dancing provocatively, but the two of them are content to playfully jig and mock each other and Leah hasn't had this much fun in a while.

An hour later, a carefully placed hand on her lower back gets her attention and Jeremy asks her if she'd like to leave.

She says yes.

They're all stumbling feet, clasped hands, and giggles and blushes as they make their way to his apartment. Her heels are off and in _his_ hands, which is just _so so so_ sweet, she thinks. Jeremy is _so_ sweet.

His hands fumble for his door handle as Leah pushes him against the wood, pressing kisses to his jaw. He's sighing and twisting his neck and Leah smiles against his lips as he finally gets the door open, dragging her in and slamming it behind them.

His shirt comes off under her nimble fingers, sometime between the time he pins her against the wall and she wraps her leg around his, pulling him close. He's hard everywhere, but especially there, _there_, and it shocks her, so much that she pulls back to take a look at his face, maybe, before they do this, before they embark on this together-

She blanches.

He has no face.

She begins shaking heavily as she comes to terms with what is happening, the situation she is in.

She had forgotten that he had no face. She hadn't even looked.

"Leah…?" faceless Jeremy asks, concerned, and she clasps hands over her eyes, terrified. She tries to focus on his words, his delightful, soulful words, as she'd been doing, but he has no face, he has no face, he has no face-

Leah gasps and pulls away, and she is repulsed, and completely nauseated. She doesn't want to be, because it's Jeremy and maybe, in another world, she could have liked him, but she's fucked up and sick to her stomach and oh God, it hurts like a bitch.

"I, oh my God, I'm so fucking sorry," she says through what feels like marbles in her mouth. "I'm so, so sorry-"

She pushes his frame away and departs through his front door, her whole body shaking with the strength of the wolf, desperate to escape, desperate to see the light of day again, after a dormant two years.

She counts to a million to calm herself down.

_Sam_, a voice cries in her head, and now that she's thought it, she's released a flood, an onslaught.

Sam, Sam, Sam, Sam, Sam, _Sam_.

* * *

><p>Her apartment is closed, but the body collapsed against the frame of her door gives her pause.<p>

Sam looks up from his slump, legs stretched out before him, his gaze running over miles of long, long legs, before meeting her eyes and she sees that his are lifeless and empty.

He doesn't say anything even as she stops in front of him.

A moment later, he does.

"You smell like him."

The words are factual; there is no inflection behind them; they are as deadened as his stare.

"Do I?" she asks airily. She fishes for his keys, but her hands are trembling so much, she drops her clutch, right at Sam's feet. She curses and bends.

A large, warm hand wraps around her wrist and she freezes, slowly slowly slowly looking up to meet his eyes.

He is despondency in the flesh.

"Why are you doing this?" he asks hoarsely and his voice breaks. It's all Leah can do to not clutch at him, hug him, beg him, apologize, apologize, apologize, because she doesn't want him to hurt, never, never, but-

_but-_

Her eyes shatter, just slightly. "I'm so lost," she admits softly, and one, single tear trickles down her cheek. He watches it, eyes widening with appalled horror, grip tightening on the delicate flute of her wrist-

She yanks herself out of his grip and straightens. She doesn't look at him, her face turned to the side; she brushes at her cheek once, harshly. She feels his grief-stricken gaze on her side profile.

"I want to be alone," she says, voice husky with all the unsaid emotion.

"Leah-"

"_Please_."

He gets up, slow and unsteady. She pushes past him, opens her door, and slams it behind her, before sinking against it.

Only then does she let her tears fall, like warm, acrid rain.

* * *

><p>The TV is playing some inane children's show and Leah shoves at Seth as he holds the popcorn away from her, giggling at her pout. She prods her elbow into his ribs and chuckles as he lets out a yelp. He yanks her hair as she makes a grab for the bowl of buttery goodness. He laughs and holds it out of her reach and Leah smirks, accepting the challenge.<p>

The front door bangs open.

Jacob strides in, tall and ferocious in the doorway of their small home, and the both of them clamber onto their feet, taken aback by his expression.

Leah's heart picks up rate as Jake looks from one sibling to the other, swallowing heavily, his gaze stricken.

"Something's happened."


End file.
